Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil returns home to the New York region

Newark, NJ – Mahmoud Khalil, the student of Columbia University Released after more than three months in ice detention, Arrived Saturday in the New York metropolitan region.

Khalil welcomed journalists and supporters while pushing a stroller through Newark International Airport.

Immigration authorities arrested Khalil, 30, in March at the University Housing Complex where he lived in New York. He was quickly transported thousands of kilometers to a detention center in Louisiana, where he spent the last months.

His unprecedented detention aroused national indignation.

Food more controversy, Khalil’s American woman gave birth to the couple’s first son in April While he was behind bars.

On Release in Louisiana FridayKhalil addressed journalists briefly, saying he was delighted to return to New York and see his family.

“Although justice has prevailed,” he said during his release, “it’s long, long awaited. And that shouldn’t have taken three months.”

“Trump and his administration, they chose the bad person for that,” he added. “This does not mean that there is a good person for that. There is no good person who should be detained for having protested a genocide, to protest against his university, Columbia University.”

Friday, the assistant secretary of internal security, Tricia McLaughlin, denounced the judicial order releasing Khalil and the judge who issued him.

“This is another example of how members outside the judicial branch undergo national security,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “Their conduct not only denies the result of the 2024 elections, but it also does a lot of trouble our constitutional system by undermining the public’s confidence in the courts.”

The Trump administration said it had the power to hold and expel the pro-Palestinian student activist, arguing that his presence in the United States threatened national security. Another accusation against Khalil alleges that he omitted details on his professional history and his membership of organizations at his request for permanent residence.

The government has cited an obscure provision in the Immigration and nationality law From 1952 which gave the Secretary of State Marco Rubio the authority to “determine personally” if a foreign national can remain in the United States for reasons of national security.

A NBC News Review of more than 100 pages of legal files have found that the prosecutors relied on unaccountable tabloid reports and anecdotal allegations, which raises doubts about the strength of their case to expel Khalil.

Less than 10 minutes after Khalil, who has no criminal history, was released from the detention center in Jena, Louisiana, the Trump administration has filed a call.

Khalil helped lead students’ demonstrations against the war in Gaza and negotiations with officials from Columbia University last year. Demonstrations at Ivy League school made the headlines for weeks and inspired similar demonstrations in universities around the world.

Some Jewish students from the United States universities reported anti-Semitic incidents while the protest movement has grown on the ground.

Khalil was the first of several foreign academics apprehended by the immigration authorities in the first months of Trump’s second term.

TUFTS Rümeysa Öztürk university studentA doctoral candidate in Türkiye was arrested outside her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, by the immigration authorities on March 25. Street viral images of his arrest have shown that heads of internal security dressed in ordinary clothes surrounding Öztürk, catching it by wrists and fellows in an unmarked vehicle.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a 34 -year -old student in Columbia Who was born in the West Bank was apprehended by the immigration authorities during their naturalization interview in Vermont.

Federal judges have also ordered the release of Öztürk and Mahdawi in recent weeks. Other notable cases include a Professor of the University of Georgetown which was arrested by ice and released later after a judicial order, and a Brown University Professor which was expelled in Lebanon.